All eyes were on Karine and she
knew it. She looked absolutely gorgeous
in a tight red dress. It was perhaps a
little over the top, with a plunging neckline and a short skirt but when you
got it, flaunt it. She was in some bar
or other and Peter was playing pool with her but when Terry came along, dressed
in tight jeans and a tighter tee-shirt, Peter cowered. Terry threw his hand out and smacked Peter in
the face, pushing him down to the ground with a loud thud. Terry grabbed Karine and bent her over, like
in an old movie, then kissed her passionately.
“Karine,”
said Pater impatiently.
Karine
snapped out of her reverie, embarrassed that she’d been so caught up in her
daydream that she hadn’t even noticed Peter join her at her locker. She impatiently asked him what he wanted and
it came out much nastier than she’d intended.
His eyes
narrowed in annoyance. “Did you have a
good time last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,
looked like it,” he snapped.
She
resisted rolling her eyes and gently asked him if everything was ok. He said that she and Terry seemed pretty
close and she insisted that they were just friends and had been since
childhood. They were like brother and
sister. It almost made her gag to say
something so ridiculous but whatever, she needed to get Peter off her
back. He seemed satisfied enough and
they started making out.
God
whatever. It was so annoying to have to
lie to him. Why couldn’t he just be
cool? Not that it was really Peter’s
fault for being jealous. He sort of did
have the right impression. Damn Terry
for not noticing Karine’s feelings for him and damn him for not giving a shit
if he did notice and damn him for not wanting her!
Stan and
his friends were heavily into Star Wars lately.
Not the movies, the online video game.
It was actually pretty cool and not entirely boring to watch them play
but still boring enough that after a few hours she wanted to do something
else. She went into the kitchen and sat
at the table eating chips. It was so
totally boring. She wished she could
watch TV. She really needed to get her
own place where she could watch the shows she liked and not be constantly
bugged by stupid guys. But that would
require money and she didn’t have any.
How did other people do it? Jobs
of course, but she didn’t know how to get one.
If only those stupid guys would give her money. She was already having sex with them;
shouldn’t she get something out of it?
She should
totally become a prostitute. But then
she’d have to have sex with really gross and scary guys. Probably ever grosser than Stan. And she’d never be allowed to say no.
God, she
was so bored. One of Stan’s porn mags
was lying around so she went ahead and picked it up. All his stupid porn mags were kinda gross but
Shauna also secretly sort of enjoyed them on a certain level. They made her feel all tingly and she wanted
to look at them while she scratched her legs in the bath, but she was afraid of
getting them wet and Stan perhaps noticing.
Bill walked
into the kitchen and she hurriedly pushed the magazine aside. He snorted in amusement and grabbed several
beers from the fridge. “Having fun?” he
smirked.
“No. I’m bored,” she replied.
“I could
prob’ly help you out with that,” he said with a wink.
Was that a
come-on? Probably. That’s all guys did was play video games and
come on to whoever or whatever was around.
“Ok.” She
said in response.
Bill looked
at her in surprise.
Well, she
might as well sleep with him too. She
was done with Stan and she was pretty sure she was finished with Rod as
well. Maybe it was time to give Bill a
try.
“Come back tomorrow when Stan’s
at work and you can help me out with that.”
She didn’t even try to be coy or flirtatious or whatever. She just said it really matter-of-factly; so
much so that she wasn’t sure he got the point.
She wasn’t even sure she got the point.
But Bill
stammered assent and then slowly walked back to the living room so Shauna went
back to looking through the porn mag.
Things
seemed to be more or less back to normal, thought it was still a little
strained. Karl was acting normal and
Vani and Willy were more or less normal so he supposed everything was
normal. Except Jay felt totally depressed. So yeah, normal.
It was a
Monday so the guys had their lunch break alone, undisturbed by girls or
supposedly cool guys and their stupid douchiness.
“So I’ve
been giving some thought to your idea of doing a superhero campaign,” said
Karl.
“Really?”
asked Jay, surprised.
Vani seemed
just as surprised and voiced his protest by insisting they couldn’t divert
attention from the ever so important campaign of watching him do whatever the
hell he wanted while the rest of them were bored out of their skulls.
“So were
you thinking a modern environment or a futuristic one?” Karl went on.
“I dunno,
whatever I guess,” Jay replied, not even sure he still wanted to start up on
another campaign. Maybe he’d just give
up gaming altogether. Finally become
cool and do whatever cool people did.
Like go to bars and concerts or whatever.
“Hey you
guys!” beamed Jojo as he joined them with his little girlfriend Cavity. She said hi too, all smiles, arm around her
stupid little boyfriend, Jojo.
“Didn’t we
get rid of you?” asked Willy before the rest of them could respond.
“What?”
asked Jojo.
“I thought
we like, got rid of you like, two years ago!”
Cavity
scrunched up her face in deep offence.
She was about to say something but Willy cut her off.
“Cassie, no
offence, but we don’t like your boyfriend.
I mean, you’re cool and everything but we really don’t want to hang out
with Jojo.”
“You’re an
ass,” she replied.
“Sorry, but
that’s just how it is.”
“Let’s go,
Jonah,” said Cavity with finality, dragging him away.
Vani let
out out a breath. “Well that was
undoubtedly hilarious but also a little extreme, even for you.”
“Is it like
your new thing to be a total asshole to everyone?” asked Jay bitterly.
“His new thing?” said Karl.
“You didn’t
have to be so mean to Cavity though,” said Vani. “Although I guess we’re better off without
estrogen gumming up the works.”
“And you
wonder why you’re a virgin,” said Jay under his breath.
“So Sarah
and Jay broke up.”
Cerise
looked up to see Karine looming over her.
She took the seat next to Cerise, where she sat near the front of the
theatre, going over her Art History notes.
Cerise was rather enjoying Art History.
The tests were stupid because they just involved memorization and that
wasn’t really learning but still, the class itself was fun. They got to look at slides, like with an actual
slide projector like it was the ‘50s or something but the pictures were
cool. It was pretty interesting to learn
about the historical context of a bunch of famous artworks. Like how all the greats during the
Renaissance did religious paintings because it was the church that commissioned
stuff and not because they were actually religious. Apparently Michelangelo even painted little
jokes about the pope into the Sistine Chapel, which was pretty hilarious.
“So yeah,”
Karine went on.
“Right
yeah, Sarah and Jay. Yeah, I heard.”
“So isn’t
that awesome?”
“Why would
it be awesome? Sarah’s totally sad and
Jay isn’t exactly happy-go-lucky guy either.”
“Yeah but
now’s your chance to get with him.”
“I don’t
even know if I want that,” Cerise whined.
“Of course
you do!” Karine insisted.
“Well I
guess I could. I mean Sarah actually
said that I could get with him if I wanted.
Which was actually kind of weird.
Just ‘cause she breaks up with him… I mean why would she wanna set me up
with him?”
“I dunno, I
guess she’s noticed that you guys would be perfect for each other.”
Why was
Karine so into the idea of Cerise hooking up with Jay? This was totally weird. Was it all some sort of elaborate set-up to
screw Cerise over? Were they all in on
it like it was a big joke or something?
“What about
Terry?” Cerise said instead.
Karine
sighed impatiently. “How can you ever
really know how you feel about Terry if you don’t really know how you feel
about Jay? And how can you know how you
really feel about Jay if you don’t… whatever, just ask him out.”
“I guess,”
shrugged Cerise.
“You
totally should,” nodded Karine. “Do you
want me to do it for you? Like ask him
for you?”
“God, no!”
Cerise said in annoyance. Seriously,
Karine was way too into this.
“Ok well, I’m
just saying,” Karine shrugged like it was no big deal.
Obviously
it was a big deal. Karine was being way
weird. Cerise decided she should talk to
Jay about it to see if he knew anything more than she did.
After school, for the first time
in forever she went over to his house.
She figured he’d be gaming with the guys but he wasn’t. His mom let her into the house and she walked
down to the basement to find him sprawled out on the sofa, covered in a
Transformers blanket. There were school
books strewn about but he wasn’t reading any of them, he was just lying there
staring off into space.
“Oh hey,”
he said when he noticed her, not bothering to sit up.
“Hey,” she
replied, sitting on the other couch.
“Sup?”
“Nothing,”
she sighed, wondering how to broach the subject. “I heard about you and Sarah.”
“Yeah.” He returned his gaze to the ceiling and after
a beat started to cry.
Cerise was
stunned. What was she supposed to
do? Jay sat up and drew his legs into
his chest, muffling his face with the blanket.
Cerise crossed the room and sat next to him and put her hand on his
shaking shoulders. She wondered if she
should say something but didn’t have any ideas so she remained silent.
“I’m such a
loser,” he finally spurted, wiping his eyes and forcing out a laugh.
“Are you
ok?”
“I’m
fine. I just really liked her is all.”
“Maybe if
you really like then you should just like be with her. Regardless of what anyone else says.”
“I can’t.
The guys…” he trailed off.
“What about
them?”
“They won’t
let me.”
“What do
you mean?”
“They say
they’ll expulse me if I go out with her.
And I mean, I can understand. She
is Karl’s ex-girlfriend.”
“Yeah but,
you know what? So what? If you really like someone then you owe it to
yourself to try having a relationship with them.” Cerise wasn’t really sure if she was trying
to get Jay back with Sarah or get him to look at her in that way.
“But Karl
has like, dibs on her or whatever.”
Cerise
snorted derisively. “How can you have
dibs on a person? I mean you can’t have
ownership over another human being.
Sarah can go out with whoever she wants.
Karl doesn’t own her.”
“But he’s
my friend and I like, betrayed him I guess.”
“I guess,”
Cerise shrugged. “But still, is it
really fair of him to try to stop you from being with someone?”
“Yeah but
he won’t be my friend if I go out with her.”
“Yeah, that
sucks,” Cerise admitted. “But it’s still
unfair. Yeah, he went out with her but
they broke up. So now she can never date
again? Come on, you can’t go around
dictating who people can and can’t go out with.”
“I guess,”
Jay shrugged.
“Or hang
out with,” Cerise said under her breath, fully realizing how ridiculous her
ultimatum to Terry had been. To break up
with him because he wanted to be friends with Andrew when he didn’t even know
what Andrew had done was completely batshit insane.
“I dunno,”
Jay went on. “I don’t wanna lose my
friends. I mean, as much as I like
Sarah, I’ve been friends with those guys since grade seven. They mean more to me than pretty much anyone
else.”
“Well it’s
nice that they mean so much to you. But
do you mean so much to them? I mean, if
they’re so willing to expulse you over this… are they really such great
friends?”
Jay’s eyes
widened and he stared at her as though it was the first time he’d considered
this. What a sad and simple little
boy. Cerise decided then and there that
she wouldn’t ever go out with him.
Probably.
Just like
in the movies Bill lit a cigarette after they were done doing stuff. Shauna had started to think he wasn’t going
to come over because Stan had already been gone for hours but finally he
appeared and when she let him in they both stood in the living room
awkwardly. At first he’d suggested they
play video games but she’d scoffed at that.
“Look,
either fuck me or leave ‘cause I don’t have time for this shit,” she’d said in
irritation.
He’d taken
the hint and started taking off his clothes.
She led him into the bedroom and got naked, not even caring that she was
fat and hairy and ugly and gross. He was
too. She closed her eyes through the
whole thing, pretty much just lying there while he did everything. It didn’t last long. Probably five minutes in all, which was a
relief.
“You can
let yourself out,” she said as she got up.
“Huh?”
“Get out!”
she practically screamed as she went to the bathroom. She locked the door and drew a bath and sat
in the tub and waited for the water to rise.
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